"If all the ways I have been along were marked on a map and joined up with a line, it might represent a minotaur." – Pablo Picasso

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STO RL Sector Map Project : Locating the places of Enterprise

Similarly to the earlier exercise “Locating the places of TOS/TAS” is this effort: locating the places of the series Star Trek : Enterprise within the STO RL Sector Map project.

Since Enterprise used the Julian Calender, it was that much easier to calculate times between episodes. However, I found that for the “min/max” light years was along the same scale as that of TOS/TAS, that is 0.36 LY per day for “min” and x12 that for “max.” At one point I had thought that the ENT max would settle around x10, and that kind of appealed to me as making sense since we would often see the NCC-1701 Enterprise scooting about at low warp numbers, so it would be possible the lower end of the cruise rate would be similar to Enterprise (0.36) and the higher end would be lower for ENT due to its lower max speed. But alas, the writers of ENT found ways to be consistent in the ways they warped space, still this is not a huge loss since as I said the TOS/TAS Enterprise often was cruising at around the same high end speed of NX-01 Enterprise, so maybe, in the end there would be no overall effective difference due to some doctrinal issues of TOS/TAS time that we are otherwise unaware of. (see the TOS/TAS Voyage map for a more in depth explanation of the min/max.)

As an interesting side note for the future, I have figured out the “min/max” for TNG and here is a comparison:10 LY “min/max” at ENT/TOS/TAS scale – min: 3.6 max: 43.2 (works out to 0.36/4.32 per day)10 LY “min/max” at TNG scale – min: 19 max: 49 (or 1.9/4.9 per day)

Oddly enough this starts to show some (likely unintended) consistency in cruise rate trends — that is the max does not alter that much…but the min should trend up as technology improves. If you think about it, the max stated canon cruise rate of NCC-1701 of around Warp 6 and NX-01 was somewhere just south of Warp 5…their effective cruise rates (which is really what we are quantifying with min/max) were likely very close due to the frenetic pace that Archer pushed the NX-01 and the more established situation of multiple starship fleet that existed during NCC-1701’s time…there is no question that NCC-1701 was far superior in every way to NX-01, but when the rubber met the road…their effective cruise rate over time was not significantly different. The main improvement for Kirk’s voyages would have been a more robust logistics network and likely a little better endurance for the ship itself.

By Picard’s time there is an obvious increase in cruising range capabilities with the Galaxy-class and later ships…and also a much larger logistical support network than even during Kirk’s time. So not only do the ships themselves have higher cruising endurance and speed, they have more bases to operate and draw needed supplies from; a clear factor for the NX-01 and NCC-1701. Even today in the real world, you can have a nuclear powered super carrier that never has to touch port (in theory) between power plant refueling, but you still need to get FFV (Fresh Fruit and Vegetables), personnel transfers, etc. Similar considerations would exist for starships, even with their replicators and endless power supplies.

One thing I did have some fun with on the ST:Enterprise travel series is being surprised at how often I could work a reference to an STO or other canon location into the NX-01’s voyage, such as Kandari (a TNG reference) as the system where the giant comet is found, and Reytan (an STO reference) as the system where the events of the episode “Sleeping Dogs” occurs.

Of course the biggest issue with ST:ENT is the Delphic Expanse, I think I found a good location for this area and it provides a plausible reason for why the Cardassian Union was bottled up “west” of Bajor for a period of time, and then eventually swooping into the Dorvan Sector some time after the passing of the Expanse. One related note on the Delphic Expanse, I’ve pretty much assumed that the Kovalaan Nebula had properties similar to the Azure Nebula due to the effects of the Expanse, allowing the “warp corridor” of the episode “E2″ and another useful “warp wormhole” for the climatic advance of the Xindi doomsday device to Earth (thus the battle where they attempt to stop the Xindi device takes place just outside the nebula.) I would surmise that with the demise of the Expanse that the “warp corridors” of the Kovalaan Nebula went with it.

Of course I had to do my best to roughly plot the location of the sphere network so that I could identify specific spheres if they were close to locations. (this grid was based on the grid shown in an Okudagraphic during ST:ENT)

in addition the Z-aspect of each star used for the Delphic Expanse stops was vetted so that it occurred within an estimated z-dimension for the Expanse disc shape centered on the +55 Z (shown as Y in the graphic, just for joy of extra confusion apparently)…this shows the Expanse as…expanding…from +55 Z at approximately 20 LY radius to a range of -24 to 134 Z at the 4 LY radius.

Another couple “geopolitical” questions arise from the Enolians and the Takret Militia. Since these two species were active in the Tau Dewa Sector Block area I supposed a couple things:

1) Enolians – Memory Alpha says the Enolians “were a significant interstellar power, operating hundreds of starships and several busy trading outposts” but yet by the time of TOS/TAS this significant power is gone. My supposition is that sometime after the Earth-Romulan War, the Romulans conquered the Enolians. Its also possible the Enolians were ground down between the expansion of the Romulans and Klingons, who then likely skirmished and warred over the bordering tidbits.

2) Takret / Takret Militia – the Memory Alpha page on the Takret Militia has a very fascinating graphic which is basically a stylized inversion of the Klingon Empire emblem. My supposition here is that the Takret Militia are closely aligned with the Klingons during ST:ENT and possibly integrated into the Empire by the time of TOS/TAS (not conquered, but integrated as an allied-subject species ala the Gorn in STO.)

The last major question I asked myself was: what keeps the Romulans from expanding towards the Alpha Quadrant absent the presence of the Earth or the Federation? My guess at this point is the Vissians, who are somewhere up there in the Ficus/Rutharian Sector area. My assumption would be that some combination of Vissian and allied worlds served to contain Romulan expansion, and eventually these powers were absorbed into the Federation after the Earth-Romulan War and before TOS.

While I have the majority of all the mentioned sectors plotted and marked up, at the time of posting this I’m still trying to get the second ring sectors published, so please have patience with me :)

Enterprise Season 1 Voyage Map

Enterprise Season 2 Voyage Map

Key for the table below:

# = episode number in chronological order, this corresponds to the number on the voyage map
part = if there are multiple locations within an episode that need be shown, this will accompany the episode number on the voyage map
name = name of episode
cdate = canon date mentioned in episode or canon passage of time mentioned in episode
location = absolute location that episode (or part thereof) occurs at…locations in parenthesis are non-canon suppositions
dist = distance, sometimes mentioned in episode
DOY/edoy = numerical day of the year
time = number of days from the previous episode or part (ex- Episode 1 Part B happens 6 days after Episode 1 Part A)
min = minimum distance possibly traveled (in Lightyears) — it is assumed within the Delphic Expanse that all travel is “min” travel
max = maximum distance possibly traveled (in Lightyears)
edate = the estimated date based off the DOY/edoy
sector = sector where the location of the episode or part of episode occurs